1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to network video games. More particularly, the present invention relates to techniques of controlling display of messages at each player's terminal in a network game in which multiple players participate.
2. Description of the Related Art
The network game is one in which multiple players participate and progress the game. Some network games are designed such that the respective players perform communications through chat. Messages, which are input by the respective players and collected to a server apparatus, are sent to each player's video game apparatus and displayed in a chat window formed at a part (e.g., bottom) of a screen of the video game apparatus.
When an amount of messages sent to each player's video game apparatus increases, and all messages cannot be displayed in the chat window, the messages in the chat window are scrolled to display a new message in the chat window. All of the messages input by the respective players or specific messages to be inevitably displayed according to the progress of the game are displayed on a limited area of the chat window of the screen.
However, in the case where multiple players transmit the messages to the server apparatus during a short period of time and many messages are sent to each player's video game apparatus from the server apparatus, the respective messages are erased from the screen in a short period of time. In such a case, the players may fail to recognize all of the messages. Unless the players can recognize the messages that are important to the progress of the game, troubles occur in the progress of the game.
The player can check the messages erased from the chat window by scrolling and displaying the respective messages in a direction opposite to the general direction. In the case of general chat outside the network game, no big influence occurs even if such a method is used. In contrast, according to the network game, the game advances even while the player checks the messages once erased. At this time, in some cases, the player, who is checking the erased messages, is left behind in the progress of the game.
The scroll-display is applied to not only the display of a chat message in the network game but also the general display of the processing result using the computer. For example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication 2001-5444 discloses a scroll-display method in fields other than network games.
According to the method disclosed in this publication, when displaying and scrolling a table composed of multiple cells, a special row or special column, which is located near a row or column designated by a user, is left on a display screen. In the case of the table, the user can set the special row or special column at a predetermined position. However, it is not certain for the player what message was sent in the network game and in what order the message was sent. There is difficulty in grasping the messages in the network game based on the concepts of the special row and special column as in the above publication. Accordingly, the technique described in the above publication cannot be applied to the network game.